I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise, but we’re not big fans of Mexican food in the OCF house. The Mister can’t eat anything spicy, and I just don’t really like it much. Too many weird ingredients that I don’t like. I’ll eat a soft taco or a taco salad, but you can keep the salsas, refried beans, black beans, pinto beans, cilantro and guac to yourselves. But sometimes you just want to make something different and just do it your own way so that you do like it. So that’s what I did with Enchiladas. I’d see recipes for them but I didn’t like anything in it. That green sauce? Ewww, what’s up with that? So I decided to make up my own. Do it the way we’d like it. And I’m pretty happy with how it turned out!
Mom’s Lightened Beef Stroganoff from Skinnytaste
March 19, 2012 by 2 Comments
I always love a good Beef Stroganoff, but I always make my Beef Stroganoff in the crock pot. When I came across this recipe for Mom’s Beef Stroganoff that was made on the stove top, I decided I needed to try it. All of the other Skinnytaste recipes I’ve tried have turned out really good, so I knew this one would probably be good.
[Adapted recipe from Skinnytaste]
INGREDIENTS
- 1-1/2 lbs lean tri-tip sirlion steak, cut in thin 1/4″ x 2″ strips
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 10 oz of sliced mushrooms
- 1 can of Campbell’s tomato soup
- 1 cup of beef broth
- 1 small fresh bay leaf
- 2 teaspoons worcestershire sauce
- 2/3 cup of light sour cream
INSTRUCTIONS
In a heavy saucepan (I used a Dutch Oven), heat pan over high heat. When pan is hot, add the oil and let it heat up for about a minute or so. Add steak and let it brown on all sides. Remove meat from pan.
Lower heat, melt butter, then add onions. Cook about 2-3 minutes until translucent, add garlic and mushrooms and sauté about 2-3 more minutes until cooked.
Add a can of tomato soup, steak, beef broth, bay leaf, and Worcestershire sauce. Cover and cook on low about 40 minutes. Remove bay leaf and mix in sour cream.
Serve over noodles or rice.
I served Sunny Anderson’s Easy String Beans & Onions with this meal as well. They are my favorite! So…I thought this was a really good dish! As you can see we had ours over Noodles. I think the next time I might cook the meat in the liquid for a little longer – maybe an hour or so. I thought it could’ve been a bit more tender, but I still enjoyed it. I LOVED the addition of the sour cream, and I think the bay leaf is a key ingredient. This meal is a keeper and leftovers the next day for lunch were delicious as well!
Slow Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken
February 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Ever since I got my new Wolfgang Puck Multi-Cooker that you can brown/sear in, I’ve been in heaven. That thing is wonderful! I love that I don’t have to dirty any extra dishes. Everything can be made in 1 pot! I don’t have to pour anything into a saucepan so that I can thicken it on the stove. I can do it right in the crock pot. I’ve definitely been using my crock pot more because of this. So this recipe is AWESOME if you have a Multi-Cooker, but if you don’t you can still make it in a regular crock pot.
A friend posted a recipe for Slow Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken on Pinterest and it sounded wonderful! I knew I needed to add it to my long list of recipes to try. And what made it even better is that I had everything on hand to make it already. Don’t you love that?
(Adapted from Six Sisters Stuff)
INGREDIENTS
- 2 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts
- Salt and pepper
- 1 cup honey
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 6 tablespoons water
- Sesame seeds (Penzeys, of course!)
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat crock pot to the sear setting if you have a Multi-Cooker. If you don’t, you can skip the browning step OR you can brown the chicken in a pan on the stove. That’s totally up to you. Season both sides of chicken lightly with salt and pepper. Add in 1 tablespoon of Sesame Oil. Brown the chicken.
In a small bowl, combine honey, soy sauce, onion, ketchup, oil and garlic. Pour over chicken.
Cook on low for about 4 hours or just until chicken is cooked through.
Remove chicken from crock pot. Turn the crock pot setting to “Sear” and let it heat up. Shred the chicken.
Dissolve 4 teaspoons of cornstarch in 6 tablespoons of water and pour into crock pot. Stir to combine with sauce. It should thicken up pretty quickly. If you don’t have a crock pot that will heat up quickly to allow you to thicken the sauce, you can try one of two things. Once you add in the cornstarch mixture you could replace the lid and cook sauce on high for ten more minutes or until slightly thickened (I would think that it would take longer than 10 minutes, but this is what they had in the Six Sisters Stuff recipe so I’m guessing it works?); OR you could transfer the sauce to a saucepan and thicken it that way. It’s totally up to you. As you can see below, the sauce is bubbling away and thickening very nicely.
After the sauce has thickened, add the shredded chicken back into the crock pot and toss with the sauce before serving.
Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve over rice or noodles.
MY NOTES
As usual I usually change or tweak a few things. So this is the part where I tell you what changes I made from the original recipe I saw. To start, I used 2 lbs of boneless skinless chicken because I wanted leftovers! This worked out well because we got a few more days out of this meal. Perfect for lunch!
Since I used my handy dandy Multi-Cooker, I decided to brown the chicken first. So what I did was I put 1 tablespoon of sesame oil in the crock pot and browned the chicken in that. I did not use the 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil that the recipe called for. I thought the sesame oil gave it some great flavor. If I wasn’t going to brown the chicken first I probably wouldn’t even add in the oil.
I’m usually a “double the sauce” kind of girl when it comes to recipe. I feel that some recipes skimp on the sauce. But not this one! There is no reason at all to to double the sauce – you get plenty, trust me!
Instead of serving the chicken in chunks, I decided to shred it. I thought this was a great idea – the sauce gets mixed in and it’s nice and sticky – goes well with the rice!
And we don’t like heat, so I didn’t add in the red pepper flakes. But if you like heat I’m sure you can add in however much you want! 
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